Photo Strip (Photoshop Tutorial)

This is a Photoshop tutorial on how to create a beautiful photo film strip, as seen in Apple’s iLife package design (’06 version) and DigitalMash website. The warp tool will be used to create the twisting effect (so, you need Photoshop CS2 or above to complete this tutorial). With the completion of this tutorial, you will be able build a photo strip with your own photos or artwork. Don’t miss out this fantastic feature!

1. Create a Strip (Vector Shapes)

First, create a strip with the Pen tool (either in Photoshop or Illustrator). We will use these shapes as a guideline and for masking purposes.

2. Photo Stack

Choose 3 photos of your choice and stack them together.

3. Warping (Photoshop Warp Tool)

Adjust the layer opacity to 40 or 50% so you can see the guideline underneath. Go to Edit > Transform > Warp. Now you should see a grid and 4 anchor points in the corner. To bending the image, simply drag the anchor points, direction points, or grid lines.

Repeat this step for the rest of the strip. Since this step is relatively simple and repeatitive, I’m not going to get into the details. Here are the screenshots of the steps:

4. Masking

Organize the layers into groups (ie. strip 1, 2, 3, 4).

Load selection from the shapes you created in step 1 and add a layer mask for each group (so you get a perfect smooth curve).

5. Shadows

In masked group 1, create a new layer above the strip. Use the Gradient tool and drag from the top to bottom to create a black gradient.

Repeat this step for the other strips.

6. Highlights

To make highlighted and glossy areas: create a round glowing circle, compress it, and rotate it in the angle according to your strip’s direction.

7. Line Strokes

To make line strokes: load a selection of the mask, create a new layer, fill it with black, shift the selection to the left by 1 or 2 pixels, delete the selected area by pressing the Delete key.

8. Final Touches

To make the image look more interesting, desaturated the two strips in the back.

Bonus Tips

The Photoshop warp tool is very useful when creating any sort of twisting and bending graphic effects. The following examples illustrate some of the things that you can do with the warp tool. Have fun!

satyaspb

Jan 14, 2009 at 12:59 am

This is really cool, it’s very simple and resourceful, I always thought of this effect being done on some 3d environment or some automated action of some sort. Kudos Nick, very inspiring.This is really cool, it’s very simple and resourceful, I always thought of this effect being done on some 3d environment or some automated action of some sort. Kudos Nick, very inspiring.

Jeff

Carlos Hermoso

Radek Kysely

Jan 14, 2009 at 9:01 am

Hey, very nice, man! But, anybody can’t use the Photoshop because it’s quite expensive way. I think, you can carry it out with another application for graphic designers, but it’s well by the Photoshop, too.

Timothy

Potisk triček

Aaron

Jan 14, 2009 at 3:12 pm

Amazing tutorial. With a little trail and error a designer could expand this tutorial to create an easy to follow method for lining up the ending pixels of the over and underlapping segments of the photo strip.

So for example, if a designer decided to use one really long image, the designer could break that image into parts to match the flow of a real world photo strip.

Actually with some thought, my idea is probably easier to accomplish in a dedicated 3D program with texture support; yet it would be a niffy expansion of this tutorial.

CMHB

Brooke

Jan 21, 2009 at 3:09 am

Great tutorial. Use of the Warp Tool gave me some insight on how to achieve a similiar effect but with lines. I know how to do it in Illustrator but I need to find a way to make it work in Photoshop 7. Thanks!

Latest Gadgets

Morten Lassen (DK)

Jan 25, 2009 at 9:38 am

Hey!

This is a great tutorial. I didn’t believe you could make such art in Photoshop but you can. I’m really surprised!

I’ve tried it out myself but I’m having problems getting the strip shape right using the pen tool. Could you make a tutorial on how you made the shape for this piece of art or an overall tutorial that shows how you use the pen tool i PS CS3? Please? :-)

tamar

MrH2o

Jan 27, 2009 at 8:56 am

I’m lost at step 7. “shift the selection to the left by 1 or 2 pixels” When i nudge it (arrow left) 1 step to left, I end up with a equally thick line, altho in the tutorial the line goes from thick black (1 px) to zero. Any help on this?

Supermance

webarticle

Seth

Feb 11, 2009 at 12:28 pm

This is indeed a great tutorial – really useful for amateurs right through to professional graphic designers. It really gets you thinking about fresh ways in which Photoshop’s powerful functionality can be used.

Sham

Art

Saw Htoo

TechGirl7

Apr 18, 2009 at 11:25 am

This is wonderful! Thank you for sharing out! Oh, I read one of the comments on page 16 from “Lou” they may want to try google translator, I put this pages url in and it translated beautifully to French ;)

Dionisie Lupanciuc

photo retouching

Scott Birnie

Apr 29, 2009 at 6:29 am

This site is aving me hours of production time. I have been using Illustrator, Photoshop and all the usual suspects for years now and still finding out some truly superb techniques to speed up my workflow and continue creating powerful graphics and imagery.
Thanks Webdesignerwall! Who should I make the cheque payable too???
:-)

sandeep

Mona

May 4, 2009 at 1:50 am

First thing good sites … to refer ,hi i am designer i wanted create new designs every day ………..please kindy help in color and design … all short cut in key borad thank a lot to give us this site………….. :-)

Cubu

monica

May 29, 2009 at 8:31 am

This was an AWESOME tutorial. I created a ribbon of photos for a DVD package and it turned out gorgeous. Without the sample and your perfect instructions I could never have accomplished this. Thank you so much!

preeti

preeti

sethu

Shoshana

Jul 15, 2009 at 1:09 pm

Thanks a lot! (: This was a great tutorial..But ii got stuck on Step 5. I’m a newbiee at Photoshop..any kind…&& ii don’t know how to add the smooth curve or mask the layer.. Please email ygevolution@hotmail.com with the answeer! ;]]

Cyrus

rebecca

Oct 25, 2009 at 12:43 pm

hi, i tried to do this tutorial but when i have my stacked photos it won’t let me select warp, if i bring the photos in seperately they are on different layers so i can’t select them as a group. how did you get your stacked photos to warp?

Mike

ajampeace

Christine

Nov 8, 2009 at 2:18 am

This is a great tutorial however…im a complete beginner in editing photos and doing all these complicated things on photoshop…I tried but i couldnt do it as professional as yours – how did you manage to wrap your phtos so neatly inside the strip guidelines?! Please help :)

Alex

no name

Henry

niliya

Feb 23, 2010 at 6:05 am

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Danny

Answer

Apr 7, 2010 at 7:54 am

Danny,

To create a round glowing circle, all you must to do is :
1-create a new layer,
2- press D on keyboard,
3-choose white for the foreground color,
4-take the gradient tool,
5-choose white to transparent,
6-choose radial gradient,
7-click and drag,
8-now you have a white glowing circle.

Master

Naomi

May 6, 2010 at 11:28 pm

I have never used the pen tool before. So how do I go about drawing the beginning guidelines in step one? Does anyone have a step-by-step tutorial that I could follow? I was hoping to use it in a graduation poster I’m working on.

Other than my speed bump, this is very beautiful! I hope I can figure it out.

Dan Flynn

anndy

Oct 7, 2010 at 9:40 pm

I have recently started using the blogengine.net and I having some problems here? in your blog you stated that we need to enable write permissions on the App_Data folder…unfortunately I don’t understand how to enable it.

pil

Oct 9, 2010 at 7:48 pm

where can i find the tuts step by seps, because i feel like there are missing a few steps, like the one at the beginning, how can i stack the first 3 pictures, cuz i do it but then when i have to apply the transform tool, it only apply for the vector but not for the picture,
TY